Dancing for Joy

The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen (Isaiah 9:2).

Some Catholics first saw the “Great Light” of Christ on their journey to conversion; others saw His light flash brightly when we heard Him calling us to a richer, more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding practice of our faith. This was in itself a great joy and, joy heaped onto joys, we found ourselves not alone but part of a great company.

Whole societies have been transformed by this light. It first touched what is now Europe in the first century and it spread and strengthened like the light of dawn. The Christian Church and Europe grew up together, and from Christian Europe came a new fraternal relationship between men and women. There also sprang new music and dances based on reason and order, reflecting the values of the Christian community. What a joy it is both to pray with one’s brother and sisters in Christ and to dance with some to the music made by others!

The combination of prayer and dancing is essential to Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party. We always begin with a prayer to St. Michael, and we always end with the season’s anthem to Our Lady. Our faith comes first and last: we are Catholics who dance, and our dancing expresses our joy in our shared faith.

We dance the waltz as a tribute to the dancing culture of historically Catholic Vienna, and we dance Scottish ceilidh dances in honour of the beautiful land in which we live. We introduced swing-dancing in fellowship with traditional Catholics in America, where swing is most definitely a thing. (Interesting, one form of swing–“le rock”– is very popular among traditional Catholics in France.) We hire Catholic musicians for our ticketed dances because we want to encourage them and to have live music ourselves to dance to. There’s nothing like it!

Are there dangers inherent in dance? Yes, of course: there are dangers inherent in every social activity. Any group of men and women coming together merely to chat risks committing slander or quarrelling, for example. And, of course, there has been a sad decline in mainstream dancing that mirrors the free-fall of social mores. (This involves not just the sexual revolution but the gender rebellion now, too.) A formal dance that aims at celebrating and strengthening a Catholic community is not just a world away from raunchy clubs, it is on a different plane.

Various saints, pastors and moralists have looked at moral evils in their local communities and prescribed remedies. Before the First World War, shepherds of souls worried about sins taking place during or (especially) after dances, particularly public, unregulated ones, at which there was unchecked drinking, no chaperones, handy nearby bushes, immodest evening dresses, or even just young men walking young women home. Just prior to World War I, there were also in fashion a number of ungainly, hugging, “animal” dances, which were condemned not just by pastors but by the internationally renowned dance teachers Vernon and Irene Castle.

For your edification here is The Grizzly Bear:

And here is the lamentable Bunny Hug:

In case I haven’t made it clear, we don’t dance like this at Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party.

The Great War changed the world, of course. Now, 107 years later, Christian moralists have a vast new minestrone of sins to combat. Many flow from the internet. I don’t mean just the pornography and bad ideas absorbed from the web, material that slides under reason to take our emotions prisoner, but also the planned addictiveness of so-called “social” media. Restless, glued to our phones, human beings are becoming lonelier and less comfortable with our greatest earthly joys: other human beings. How sad to think that even Christians, freed by Christ, have been enslaved by solitary sins of many kinds with this new technology.

We need a remedy for that, and my home remedy is traditional Catholic social dancing. If you belong to the faith (or will soon) and would like a dose, contact me about our September dance workshops and, of course, tickets to the Michaelmas Dance!